Atmosphere

by Taylor Jenkins Reid

But I think it is also the relief I feel that those stars are immovable. Nothing you or I could do will ever alter them. They are so much bigger than us. And they will not change within our lifetime. We can succeed or fail, get it right or get it wrong, love and lose the ones we love, and still the Summer Triangle will point south. And in that way, I know everything will be some type of okay—as impossible as that can seem sometimes.

my mom said that if I was going to be proud of myself for being generous, that I had to do it even when it meant I might lose something. She said, ‘You have to have something on the line, for it to be called character.’ ”

Vanessa threw her head back and cackled, and Joan blushed at the attention it drew. But when Vanessa raised her hand to give her a high five, Joan laughed and returned it.

Bravery is being unafraid of something other people are afraid of. Courage is being afraid, but strong enough to do it anyway.”

“Neither of us are particularly brave right now,” Vanessa said. “But both of us are going to be courageous.”

My God, she thought, what else can I do?

the stuff that made life worth living.

we also learn how earlier generations made sense of the world. The stars are connected to so many other elements of our life. It’s the gray areas that are most fascinating: ‘Is this astronomy or history?’ ‘Is this time or space?’ ”

“But why not? Why, when they tell you that God created man out of thin air and then you learn about evolution, why does the whole thing not crumble for you?” “Because there are so many ways to define God and there’s still so much unknown about the universe. I could never say that science has obliterated the possibility of God. Certainly I don’t see that happening in my lifetime. And I think something would be lost, if it did. Or maybe I should say that I hope that if it did happen, it would only be because something even more incredible was discovered.”

“But the unifying theory does exist. It must. We just haven’t figured it out yet. And I think the pursuit of finding one law to explain the universe is, yes, science, but it’s also the pursuit of God.”

Joan considered this. “The Jewish philosopher Spinoza said that God did not necessarily make the universe, but that God is the universe. The unfolding of the universe is God in action. Which would mean science and math are a part of God.”

“When you die, someone will bury you or turn your body into ashes. Eventually, you will return to the Earth. You already are a part of the Earth. What better reason do we have to take care of this Earth and everything on it than the knowledge that we are of one another?”

From up there, everyone is so alike, they have so much in common, and they can’t see it. But I can, when I’m up there.”

Which meant that the rock used in Western civilizations to express romantic love and steadfastness was not the strongest material in the universe, but merely the strongest thing humans had ever found on Earth. The hardest, strongest thing humans knew of at the time.

“Happiness is so hard to come by. I don’t understand why anyone would begrudge anyone else for managing to find some of it.”

“I can wake up every single day and choose you, over and over and over again. If you’re in bed next to me, I will take your hand. If you are not, I will go find you. I will spend the rest of my life, if I get that lucky, seeking you out. Not because I promised you or because you’re there. But because I will want to. I will want to be beside you. Every day. Forever.”

“Because it feels good to love someone,” Donna said. “It feels better than anything on this Earth. And I bet better than anything up there.”

Day in and day out, the Earth keeps spinning and revolving and sailing through the Milky Way. That is why time never stands still.

But as Joan watched the Earth through the window now, it struck her as monumentally absurd that any of this had been a race with any opponent. Whatever the stated or unstated goals of the Apollo program, the achievements of everyone in space were shared, she thought, among us all.

Small, slight, unimportant Joan. Just one person of five billion, on a small planet orbiting a small star, in a humble galaxy, one of billions of galaxies. Joan is so insignificant and yet, look what God had given her. Look at all that God had given her. Look at what no one will ever be able to take away.